


Light Will Guide You Home

by klutzy34



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship, Season/Series 10, Spoilers, post-series finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:47:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23478718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klutzy34/pseuds/klutzy34
Summary: Post-series finale. Junior draws on his life with Five-0 and the family he's found to reassure a hurting friend.
Relationships: Junior Reigns/Tani Rey, Steve McGarrett & Danny "Danno" Williams
Comments: 16
Kudos: 87





	Light Will Guide You Home

**Author's Note:**

> This is absolutely unbeta'd but not a fix it fic. There is nothing in that ending that was more than a vagueness open to interpretation and the interpretation is what you make of it, not what someone tells you to interpret it as. Me? Steve had to step away for his own sake so that he could come back and enjoy life with his ohana, with his Danno. And Danny? He also deserves the world and while it hurts now, especially with a past of being left behind and not chosen, he's going to get his Steve back and they'll be those two old men sitting on the beach, watching the sun set together.
> 
> For what comes in between, that's up to us to fill in.

“I’m not dead.” 

Junior went absolutely still a few paces behind the chair Danny remained in for most of the afternoon and into the evening. The last streaks of vivid colors slowly disappeared as darkness silently embraced the sky and brought an end to an emotionally exhausting day. He debated turning and heading back to the house now that he had his answer but it didn’t feel right letting Danny just sit out here either. At least inside, they had each other. 

He finally sunk down into the empty chair beside Danny, kicking his slippers to the side and wiggling his toes in the cooling sand, letting the sound of the tide gently rolling into shore soothe the mingling emotions of sadness and understanding. “I didn’t think you were dead,” Junior softly informed him, “but I know you’re still a little weak from everything you went through and - “

Danny cut him off. “I’m fine.”

How long had it been since he’d come back to Hawai’i? Three years. Junior of three years ago might’ve stood down from what could be defined as a subtle order from a senior officer but the difference between Five-0 and the SEALs was at the end of the day, the senior officers were family too. His family. Sitting forward in his chair, he angled to get a better look at Danny in the deepening darkness. The house lit up behind them was quickly becoming the only source of light to see by. 

“No offense meant by this but I don’t think you’re fine.” Junior tentatively ventured forward, prepared to shift tactics if this first one was met with anger or silence. “And if there’s one thing that I’ve learned over the past few years, it’s that it’s okay to not be fine because there are people here who will help you while you work towards being fine again.” His gaze shifted down to the chair, digging his thumbnail into the imperfection in the wood of the chair’s arm. “He’ll be back. He didn’t say good-bye forever, just...until he found what he was looking for.” 

Something in those words sparked something in Danny, the detective finally turning his head just enough to look at Junior. In the dim light from the house, Danny’s eyes were bloodshot and red, swollen. He’d been out here crying. Junior quickly averted his eyes again, staring down at his toes. 

“I know he’s coming back. There would be loose ends to tie up, sign over, take care of if he wasn’t.” Danny’s voice broke, shook, and he cleared his throat, running a hand over his mouth. “He’s coming back.” Those were the words of a man trying to convince someone of their reality, whether it was Junior or him or the both of them. 

Silence fell between them again and Junior floundered around mentally for something else to say. This would’ve been easier with McGarrett. They were cut from a similar cloth, a similar approach to emotions. Compartmentalize, knock back a beer, move forward. Danny and Tani were also cut from a similar cloth but one vastly different from theirs. They spoke their mind and they were loud and outgoing. 

They also felt very deep and that meant the hurt cut in a different way, a way he was just learning to understand with Tani’s patience. 

“I failed him.” Danny ended Junior’s indecision, barely getting the difficult words out. Junior sat up straighter, brow furrowing, lips pursing as he tried to process the surprise quick enough to argue against what Danny said. “I knew that what happened to him, the past, everything that he endured, I knew it was getting heavier on his shoulders. I saw him getting tired and I tried...I wanted to help him. He had to leave because I couldn’t help him. I failed him.” 

Junior shook his head sharply before he realized the action would be lost in the darkness. “You didn’t fail him. Would you tell Lou that he failed him? Adam? Tani? Me?” Danny shut his eyes and his fingers tightened on the chair’s arms a little more. 

“No. None of you knew him as long as I did. I should’ve…” He trailed off into silence. Unable to even complete that sentence. 

“I’m just gonna throw this out there but I don’t see it that way at all.” 

“He had to leave because nothing here could help him.”

“I might be wrong but it seemed like he had to leave because all the bad juju of the past collected here,” Junior offered. “Wasn’t you, wasn’t us. All that family stuff was here before we got here. Reason why he started all this. Spent a lot of time weighing on him with questions. If that was me, I think I’d need to leave so I could clear my head and figure out who I was without all of it.” 

To his surprise, Danny laughed softly and covered his eyes with his hand. “Yeah, I figured, but what happens to the people he came to know because they worked his father’s case, worked the angles of that great fucking mess of a mystery his mother teased him along with.” 

The pieces started to slide together in Junior’s mind. Steve coming back wasn’t the issue, though he had no doubt that as co-dependent as they were, they already missed each other’s presence. That was the thing though. Anyone with two eyes and a brain saw how close the two of them were. 

“I couldn’t help him and he had to leave to get away from all of it.” 

“Friendships, connections don’t happen because you fail someone.” Junior turned to look back at the house, the people inside. He saw a flash of dark hair in the kitchen window that disappeared as suddenly as he spotted it. Tani watching out for him, for them. A light smile touched his lips and he turned back around. “They happen because people keep close to the good in their lives. Makes ‘em feel less alone, alleviates the weight.” Because Tani had when she swept into his life, challenging his world views and drawing him out of the limited emotional box the Navy built him into to better perform his duties. Free spirited but deep, complex but relatable, her presence in his life had changed him for the better and while he still had his demons to battle, just knowing she was there made the thought easier to bear. 

He didn’t have to be a mind reader to know it was the same with McGarrett and Danny. 

“And sometimes you just gotta do things on your own because you don’t know where to start. Everything’s a mess and you have to figure out where to start unknotting it before you can start straightening it out. How you gonna get help if you don’t even know what you need?” The words started to spill out of Junior as he stared out at the ocean, hands making small movements in the air. 

He didn’t expect a response out of Danny, at least not right away. What he also didn’t expect was the other man watching him, more focused on the present than he had been the entire conversation. “Is this...is this something you picked up or are you…?”

Junior quickly shook his head. “No. No. I’m just...I’ve been there and…” He rose to his feet. “You didn’t fail him. It’s just something McGarrett’s gotta start figuring out for himself and then he’s gonna be back here. He’s gonna be back here because you and McGarrett are the dads of this family and there’s no way you guys aren’t ever...you know. Partners.” He ducked his head, hands sliding into his pockets. “We gotta take care of Eddie and the house and the team. Keep ‘em running smooth until he gets back.” 

Danny slowly sat up a little straighter, the toll of the events the week before still very obvious in his movements. Once he started to get to his feet, Junior moved forward to grab his arm but Danny waved him off. He settled on his feet and faced Junior. “Okay. Okay, he’s coming back,” he said softly and rest his hand on Junior’s shoulder. “He’s coming back and we have to make sure the team stays in one piece. I swear Cole’s crazier than he is.” 

The grin that appeared on Junior’s face was wide, genuinely amused. “No easy task but there’s more than one of us to get it done, right?” He raised his fist for Danny to bump but Danny stepped past the fist to wrap his arms around Junior, hugging him tightly. Junior paused, surprised by the action, but then hugged him back. 

“Thanks,” Danny murmured softly. 

Junior glanced back towards the house again and this time, the light from inside outlined a dark figure on the lanai that he would recognize anywhere. The woman that he found his way back to time and time again because the love in her burned so strongly that it created a beacon to always help him find his way home. Something he never thought he’d have, never realized that he could have, but watched two men in his life and learned that he could, enough to take the chance when Tani came into his life. Just like McGarrett would find his way back to Danny when his world made a little more sense again.

His arms tightened a little more around Danny. “That’s what ohana does.”


End file.
